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Over the past three years, I’ve confirmed that the stereotypes associated with engineers are by far the most accurate stereotypes placed upon any group of people. Of course, there are always exceptions. There are engineers who don’t care how their cell phone works as long as it does. There are engineers who can watch movies without pointing out the technical inconsistencies, and there are engineers who don’t know the differences between the dexterity levels of elves and dwarfs. Exceptions will be there, but in general, the stereotypes stand.
The only major problem with engineering stereotypes is that they don’t apply women. This can cause problems when other people don’t realize this.
Attractive women
in engineering are probably the most hit on people on the planet. It's not
because they're better looking than other girls. Attractive women in general
have spent years training nerdy engineering types to stay far away through
years and years of constant rejection.
Attractive women in engineering do not have this luxury. Guys in engineering
think that the stereotypes apply to the women in their classes- meaning, they
think they have stuff in common with them.
This is usually not true.
They don’t watch Babylon-5 and they certainly don’t care about
the LAN party you’re going to this weekend. Women will usually lose
their tolerances for nerds by their junior year. I’ve seen guys stabbed
with soldering irons and clubbed unconscious with TI-89s because they didn’t
know this.
Unlike many college girls, girl engineers don’t have any self-steam issues. You won’t find them getting drunk at parties to impress guys. I’m not sure how they do get guys, because they’re not exactly flirty, they don’t need to be. I’m starting to think that because they’re hit on so often by losers, their goal in college is to get high paying engineering jobs so they can hire buff pool boys they can seduce.
While most of the guys in engineering are pretty smart, there are plenty of exceptions. Here’s a tip for you pre-engineering students taking your physics labs; be lab partners with a girl. It doesn’t matter how she looks, because if she’s a girl, she’s smart. In the first year or two of college there are plenty of guys who lack smarts or will power to handle the engineering course load. Girls in engineering have already decided to bypass the status quo by majoring in engineering, so they’re generally smarter to start with.
I was flipping
through Auburn’s literary magazine the other day and I came across an
article entitled “Women Studies at Auburn”. The article starts
out by saying it’s a bad thing that woman only account for 16% of engineering
students in the U.S. Fair enough, I think it should be higher too. It continues
to explain how Auburn is trying to combat women’s diminished role in
society by having a “Women’s Studies” program at Auburn.
In this program, women empower themselves by taking courses about culture,
family, family life cycle and psychology in gender. If Auburn wants to encourage
more women to be engineers, then do it by encouraging more women to major
in engineering. Encouraging women to major in “Women’s Studies”
will just teach them to be mad at republicans. It won’t teach them to
become engineers.
In conclusion, I now remember why I didn't post this in the summer; it's filled
with ignorance and isn't even funny... it's not because it's sexist.
Mark can be contacted at mark@theauburner.com
*Aerospace
engineers don’t apply to many of the standard stereotypes. An electrical
engineer will work hard for four years and be happy to land a job designing
the circuitry inside a toaster. A civil engineer will work hard for four years
and be happy designing sewer drains. Aerospace engineers will work for four
years and suddenly they think they’re entitled to a trip to space.
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